You can configure desktop pools to enable ESXi hosts to cache virtual machine disk data. This feature, called View Storage Accelerator, uses the Content Based Read Cache (CBRC) feature in ESXi hosts. View Storage Accelerator can reduce IOPS and improve performance during boot storms, when many desktops start up or run anti-virus scans at once. The feature is also beneficial when administrators or users load
applications or data frequently. To use this feature, you must make sure that View Storage Accelerator is enabled for individual desktop pools.

View Storage Accelerator is enabled for a pool by default. You can enable or disable View Storage Accelerator when you create or edit a pool.

You can enable View Storage Accelerator on pools that contain linked clones and pools that contain full virtual machines.

View Storage Accelerator is also supported with local mode. Users can check out desktops in pools that are enabled for View Storage Accelerator. The feature is disabled while a desktop is checked out and reenabled after the desktop is checked in.

Native NFS snapshot technology (VAAI) is not supported in pools that are enabled for View Storage Accelerator.

View Storage Accelerator is now qualified to work in configurations that use View replica tiering, in which replicas are stored on a separate datastore than linked clones. Although the performance benefits of using View Storage Accelerator with View replica tiering are not materially significant, certain capacity-related benefits might be realized by storing the replicas on a separate datastore. Hence, this combination is tested and supported.

When a virtual machine is created, View indexes the contents of each virtual disk file. The indexes are stored in a virtual machine digest file. At runtime, the ESXi host reads the digest files and caches common blocks of data in memory. To keep the ESXi host cache up to date, View regenerates the digest files at specified intervals and when the virtual machine is recomposed. You can modify the regeneration interval.

Prerequisites

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Verify that your vCenter Server and ESXi hosts are version 5.0 or later.

In an ESXi cluster, verify that all the hosts are version 5.0 or later.

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Verify that the vCenter Server user was assigned the Global > Act as vCenter Server privilege in vCenter Server. See the topics in the VMware Horizon View Installation documentation that describe View Manager and View Composer privileges required for the vCenter Server user.